The END
by widemindedwinglover
Summary: This story is a two fold tale about World War III- the fight to destroy all mutants, including Max... It follows the story of a young French girl who is hiding a mutant in her house, and the story of Maximum Ride, saving the world. Fax will be involved. Special thanks to moonlight phonex101 for viewing it over!
1. Chapter 1

**This story is a two fold tale about the attempted Genocide of all mutants, a.k.a. World War III. It follows the story of a young French girl who is hiding a mutant in her house, and the story of Maximum Ride, saving the world.**

**_PROLOGUE:_**

Cloudy fog rolled through the beautiful French country-side; or what was once beautiful. The roads were now muddy and rough with the constant pounding of soldier's feet, ugly barbed wire fencing lining said road, and houses were rotting with decay.

Except for one. It was small, white, and very pretty. It was obviously the home of somebody very wealthy, and it was only slightly rundown.

A slight figure stood across from the house. He knew it was unwise to stand in the open for even a moment, but he relished the last breath of fresh air he would get for a while. His tawny eyes flicked over the landscape, and his tufted tail gave a nervous twitch. He muttered a string of words under his breath; a phrase that kept him alive, true to himself. A phrase that did not let himself become forgotten.

He was about to dart across the road when the front door of the house opened. A slender girl was framed in the doorway, her long black curls spilling down to her waist. Her enormous blue eyes were locked on his.

"The pass code?" she asked with a light French accent.

The boy took a deep breath, the heavy words ready to spill off of his tongue.

"Maximum."

She smiled.

**MAXIMUM POV: TWO YEARS EARLIER**

Saving the world wasn't what I thought it would be.

I thought it would be freeing all the mutants from the Itex plants, and we did. The Flock and I exposed the Schools to the media, and we got the United States army to help us.

Then we freed the mutants. Sent the scarred ones to rehabilitation, sent kids to their homes, sent the orphans to loving foster homes. The public was horrified at the awful treatment, and they accepted the poor children and teenagers. Everyone took care of them.

There's the problem. These mutants weren't designed for a world at peace. They were hurt, violent, and unstable. And they struck back.

And the public did a back flip. Or at least, one group did. They called themselves the END: the Extermination of Noxious Demon-children.

They formed a huge party. They infiltrated European governments, got the support of the people. And they began the genocide of all mutants.

In the continents of Asia, Africa, and parts of Europe.

It's World War III. Europe is at war with itself; Germany, Austria, and Turkey (they called themselves the END) were fighting against France, Great Britain, and Russia (they called themselves the Mutavi). Asia and Africa were supporting the END side, and right now, I'm in the president's office, deciding whether America should join the war.

"You're going to join the Mutavi side, right?" I demanded, slamming my hands down on the desk. The president and his advisors jumped, startled, but behind me the Flock was perfectly smooth. It had been two years since that fateful day Angel got captured, and now we were facing a much worse situation. Right now, the countries of North America were all in support of the Mutavi side; however, they wouldn't join the war until the United States joined.

"Yes, Max, if we do join the war, we will join the French, or the _Mutavi _side."

"Mr. President! Mr. President!" the president's advisor, Charlie, rushed into the room. "France has been invaded by Germany. Allies of the Mutavi need to throw in their support now!" Advisor Kevin, a guy who gave us sodas and was therefore on our "cool" list, picked up a phone. His mouth hardened into a line.

"Australia just joined the Mutavi side. That leaves the END with the support of Asia and Africa. Mr. President, if the Mutavi stand any chance, we need to join now."

The president took a deep breath, and let it shudder out. With my super eyesight, I could see a couple of tears pricking the corner of his eyes. I knew that this was a moment that could change history; and of course, Gazzy had to fart.

I swiveled around, and he gave me a bashful look. Nudge immediately began a quiet little blabber going on about how totally "gah-ROSS!" it was, but I could tell; she was only trying to cover up her nerves. Fang clapped his hand over her mouth, keeping totally impassive.

"Kevin, inform the Secretary of War. Tell the press, but notify the leaders of our fellow North American countries first. The United States of America will enter World War III."

I turned toward Angel, feeling her nudge against my mind. Tears were swimming in her big blue eyes.

"All this carnage. All this death. Just for us mutants."

The Mutavi and the END One for the mutants. One against.

"So, when are you sending us into battle?" Iggy asked.

* * *

So, the phrase of the next three months was "ABSOLUTELY NOT, WE ARE NOT SENDING CHILDREN INTO BATTLE." Of course, Iggy pointed out that "children" had managed to sneak over 263 explosives onto White House property.

Eventually, we came to a compromise; if we couldn't go into battle, we could set up an underground railroad.

The next year was spent flying across Europe, dodging bombshells, and bribing various persons to turn their homes into wayward houses for poor mutants. Mutants channeled from in from Asia, through Africa, up across Europe, and with the help of several pilots, to America.

So yeah, it seemed simple from our end. But on the other side, it was bloody. Harsh. Not a lot of people got through.

The war was tearing the world apart, and we needed to end it. The president did have a plan, but he wouldn't act on it until the mutants were all out of Europe.

That would take too long. And we've never been good at listening to grown ups. You know, the ones who didn't want us to go into battle.

"Guys?" I whispered. We were crouched on a Long Island beach. Fang stood out against the white sand, carved out of dark marble. He gave me a little nudge with his shoulder—a little bit of comfort, a bit of un-Fang like human connection. I blushed and moved away.

"You know this can be dangerous. We could die," I stated. Nudge and Gazzy exchanged looks, and stared at me.

"Max, we know. You've debriefed us—heh. Debriefed," Gazzy snickered, but he immediately shut up when I let loose a glare. Nudge began quietly babbling about the possibility of running out of clean underwear on the road.

Iggy's fingers nervously twitched, and he began re-scrambling his most recent bomb.

"I mean, sure, it might be more dangerous to fly to a European war and save mutants for a _blind guy_, but we don't really have a choice. I overheard the president saying that the war would move on to American soil soon," Iggy said.

I felt the slight chill of horror. This mission had become even more important.

"Max?" Angel asked, tugging on my sleeve and looking up at me with big eyes. It's easy to imagine that she was going to say something innocent, something a seven year old should say. But no.

"Max, we need to go soon. They'll have the Secret Service after us," Angel urged. I gazed at the deserted beach, the last stretch of America I would see, and looked over at Fang. If I ever felt like I could fully depend on someone, it would be him, but my mind and my heart were so confused that…

Fang caught me staring at him. He gave me a nod and I knew; he understood that we were probably going to die. He understood what I was going through as a leader. He _understood me. _And that was all it took for me to take action.

"Let's go."

And our six dark shadows exploded into motion, sprinting toward the waves and stretching our wings to fly toward the foreign war, to save the unnatural, and to stop the destruction of the world.


	2. Meet Caiden Rise, Lion Boy

**I didn't get as much response as I had hoped, but please review for this one!**

I pulled myself over the last stretch of barbed wire, grimacing as the twisted metal tore at my stomach. Using the last bit of my strength, I dropped down on the other side of the fence, breathing hard.

For a normal human, the last six months of scrounging for food on a battle field while traveling through said battle field to survive would have been fatal to their fragile bodies. I was half dead, but not six feet under. That's one difference between mutants and humans.

I was human once, though. Honestly. A normal human guy. I played soccer, and ran track. I got A's and B's for grades. Normal.

I remember the day that I was caught by an Eraser. It was about two years ago when it happened. I was 13 years old.

That day, I was on my eighth grade field trip to Washington D.C. I had wanted to be an architect back then, so a place like D.C. was like a kid being in a candy shop.

I was fascinated by every monument, every building, every little piece of history splashed across the city. I would study every angle of the monument, often having to be pulled away by the teacher. Point is, I dragged behind everyone. That's why I was the perfect target…

My class had been heading back to the hotel to eat dinner and go to bed, but I had lingered at the street corner. The building across from where I was had fascinating Corinthian style columns, so I had grabbed my sketch pad and begun to draw.

Suddenly, a sliver of fear had shot through my heart. Across the street, standing on the steps of the building, had been a man in darker clothing. I realized I had seen him all day long; in a tour group at the FDR exhibit, paying respect with a group of mourners at the Holocaust museum, and posing with friends in front of the Capital building. In different clothes each time.

Something was not right.

I had begun to sketch again, furiously. At that moment, my class was half a block away, and if I finished the drawing in a couple of seconds, I could catch up and tell them about the strange man. I had drawn him standing on the steps, a curiously blank look on his face. I had looked up again to get one last glimpse and—

He was gone.

I had taken off running, as fast as I could. I was the third fastest runner in my school district—that included the high school kids— but I hadn't been fast enough. I could see my class in the distance. My heart began to pound, my pacing increased, and my lungs began to ache.

That's when a dark hand had emerged out of an alleyway, grabbed me by the shirt, and slammed me against the wall. I had given a moan as blood trickled out of the corner of my mouth. Still, I hadn't given up.

"HELP! HEL—"

The hand had pressed itself across my bloody mouth, and I felt a painful prick in my arm. I had looked down and hazily seen a needle.

I still didn't give up.

As the man had picked me up and begun to drag me to a cellar opening in the alley way, I had slowly and excruciatingly reached up for my backpack and pulled it off my arm. The last thing I had seen before the blackness engulfed my mind was the backpack slipping and hitting the ground.

I had smiled sleepily. I had left a trail.

Later, I learned that when the police doubled back around, they found my sketchpad. They saw the half finished drawing of the man and realized that I must have been drawing my killer (by that late in the investigation, they were just looking for a body).

Where was I? Oh, yeah.

I had made up my mind not to cry, no matter what the psycho path did to me. I had broken that promise almost immediately when I woke up inside a dog cage.

"Hey, calm down!" a voice had called. I turned around and had seen a girl. She had strange yellowish eyes, golden hair, and spots trailing from her neck to her tail. Yeah, her tail.

"This is the big-cats unit. I'm Grace, your tour guide for hell."

That's when I had learned where I was. An underground science lab that mutated children they stole off the streets into animal-human combinations. Part bird, part horse, part tiger, part fish; they did all of that.

But I still didn't give up.

Grace and I became buddies right away. We were about the same age, and she was easy to be around. Some mutants even thought we were siblings, due to our similar color, hair, and eyes. It might be hard for some people to make friends in this torture house, but Grace could.

When I was first taken into the lab, I didn't leave for three weeks. Needles, gels, electrodes, strange drugs, and funny-tasting water were given to me regularly. Grace later told me that she actually watched my transformation take place; she had also been in the lab at the time.

"It was scary to watch, Blondie," she had remarked, yellow eyes serious, even when calling me her stupid nickname. Blondie. She had blonde hair too!

I had been unconscious at the time the transformation took place, but my body hadn't been. Fur rippled. Bones cracked. Muscles stretched and turned so strained and red with blood that Grace could see them through my skin.

When I woke up three days later, I was part human, part lion. I had tawny eyes, retractable claws, a tail, and much, much more. I had fur around the base of my tail. I could jump over thirty feet. I could run over 150 miles per hour, and I was increasing my speed daily. I had to eat meat to survive.

I had turned into a mutant.

But I still didn't give up.

I had been in the lab for six months. My fourteenth birthday had come and gone. Grace had led the mutants in the "big-cat" unit in a quiet rendition of "Happy Birthday." The scientists had been dragging me out of my cage every morning since I transformed, forcing me to run, and jump, and hit things with me claws, and much, much worse.

The worst was yet to come, as well as the best. But through all the torture and the pain, I still didn't give up.

"Um…rob a bank," Grace had replied to my question of what she wanted to do when she got out. "I mean, who could stop me, Cheetah girl, the awesomest girl ever?"

"Technically, you're part leopard," I had said, grinning. Grace had grinned back, and then winced.

"What?"

"Nothing, just some leftover pains from this new drug the scientists are trying out."

I was ready to comfort her, but the door to our unit had opened just at that moment. I remember looking at Grace for reassurance. Her yellow eyes smiled at me, and for a moment I could see what she had been. A blue eyed, blonde haired, beautiful little girl.

"Go kicking and screaming," Grace had whispered, her finger hooking onto mine through the bars of our cage. It tightened for a moment.

"You've been the best friend I've ever had. I love you."

I had been surprised for a moment, but I replied back.

"Love you too, Gracie."

When I had come back, Grace was splayed across the floor of her cage, her golden hair fanned out behind her. Her yellow eyes stared blankly into the distance. Blood stained the corners of her mouth.

She was dead.

That's when I gave up.

Exactly twelve minutes from when I had found Grace's dead body, the door to our unit was smashed open.

"Home base, home base, they have kids in here, too!" a soldier in a SWAT uniform hollered into a radio. I was too broken to say anything, but the other mutants were shouting, screaming, crying in thankfulness.

A grim chuckle had bubbled up beneath my chest. Twelve minutes. If Gracie had held on just a little longer, she would have been free.

Everything had been sorted out. We were sent home to our families—all of us. Apparently, thousands of labs just like the one I had been in existed all across the world. We were saved; all thanks to a girl named Maximum Ride.

The army sent me home in a private car, driven by a sergeant. He escorted me to the door, let me ring the door bell, and waited for my parents to come get me. My very religious, Catholic, uptight parents.

In a space of fifteen minutes, my parents, the only family I ever knew, disowned me and kicked me to the curb. They allowed me five minutes in my bedroom to pack, and then forced me out. They called me a demon, a devil, "no child of mine," unnatural, and a mutant.

The army sergeant got a hold of Social Services, and in a week, I was settled into a foster home in Chicago…which I ditched after a month. Word on the street was that a bunch of mutants from big cat units were disowned, also. They were gonna move to Africa, and live like real big cats.

The human part of my blood thought that was crazy. But the lion in me relished it. It longed for it. Every second in that tiny two bedroom-ed apartment in Chicago was slowly killing me, driving me insane.

So one night, I packed every necessity possible into my backpack, stole the foster dad's credit card, and sprinted into the night. I withdrew enough money from an ATM to get a plane ticket to Egypt. By that morning, I was gone.

It took over a month to travel across Africa using my super speed to find the location of the rest of the pack, but I found them.

And it was glorious.

We lived in this big, dry, dusty old cave, right on this savanna. Beyond the savanna was a thick, steaming rainforest. Our beds were nests of blankets and cloth we had found or brought. At night, we curled together like puppies to keep warm. We hunted gazelles using our instincts as lions, and cooked them civilly like humans. We scared real lions away from the nearby water hole and boiled our water to keep it clean, although our stomachs could now process anything.

We played. We fought. We worked. It soon became clear I was the leader of our pride, that I was born to dominate our pack. According to the locals, who live about 50 miles away, we were somewhere in the Democratic Republic of Congo; the place that had the most thunderstorms in the world.

But all good things must come to an end, and things came to an end after we spent a wonderful year in the wild.

Lucy, the four year old tiger girl, came home from hunting with a bloody leg. She whimpered that the nearby villagers were going to hunt us down and kill us, and they tried to start with her. So I went out on a scouting mission.

That's when I found out about the END.

The crazy group that wanted to destroy all mutants.

I could speak the local language—French—but I had still been confused about what the weathered African farmer was telling me.

"Les END…. ils tuent tous les mutants ?" I'd asked slowly. I was pretty sure I just asked whether the END killed all mutants.

"Nous sommes à la guerre maintenant. Les assassins d'END sont juste allés aller exterminent le paquet d'enfants de lion qui vivent dans les collines."

The old African farmer had smiled blandly at me, the intruding white boy. I was shocked.

"Pardon moi?" I had asked. I had heard that he said we were at war…but I didn't catch the last part. About the assassins.

"Les assassins d'END sont juste allés aller exterminent le paquet d'enfants de lion qui vivent dans les collines," the man repeated, shaking his head. I slowly translated it in my head.

Assassins of the END…went to kill…lion babies that lived in the hills?

Suddenly, it came to me. I snapped into action, exploding into furious motion.

They went to kill the lion children. The animal children. The mutants.

I arrived at our hideout in two minutes, breathing hard.

Everyone was gone.

No sign of struggle. No blood. No nothing.

I had touched the nest of blankets, hoping that maybe Lucy, or Grant, or Tommy, or Evie would pop out.

Twenty three mutants had disappeared without a trace. It had been a year and a half since I had been turned into a mutant, and everyone I loved was dead, gone without leaving a clue. Except…

A folded, worn piece of paper was tucked in the scrubby bush by the cave. Only my expert lion eyes could pick it out.

The words were scribbled in charcoal.

_THE SAFE HOUSE. MAXIMUM. FIND OTHERS._

It took me three days without sleeping or eating, but I had run, all the way from the center of the Democratic Republic of Congo to a town on the coast of Angola called Lobito.

I slept on the edge of the beach that night, deeply shrouded in thick plants and sand. I had seen END assassins on the towns I passed through; tall, imposing men and women, dressed in black, armed to the teeth. I had to find others, and I knew just where.

The lion in me had been wary of swimming, but the human in me loved water. Lions, of course, can swim—they just don't like to.

I had struck out soon after day break, aiming myself toward a tiny, craggy rock far out in the sea. At the time, I was pretty sure that the humans couldn't see it with their weak vision, so I thought I would be okay. Even the massive bull sharks left me alone, for the most part.

By the time I had reached the rock, it was well past noon. I had been exhausted when I climbed onto the tiny platform to begin sunning myself.

"So it's true," an amused voice had said hours later, waking me from my nap. "Male lions do sleep all day and do nothing."

I had groggily looked up to see an African princess. She had long, dark black hair, dark skin, and piercing brown eyes. And of course, a beautiful dark blue tail.

"Hello," I had said, dazed. "I knew you would be here."

"I'm Adaeze," she'd said smoothly. "My informants on land told me that fellow mutants might try to meet me here sometime."

"Yeah. One of my pack said that if anything went wrong, I should meet a girl off the coast here."

I had sat up and realized I was in a little girl's dream fantasy.

A school of giggling African mermaid girls surrounded the rock. Some of them were pretty, like the traditional kinds of mermaids, but others had shark teeth and green skin. The male mermen hung back from the rock, wary of this new prey.

Mermaids: other wise known as fish-human mutants.

"Have you guys heard about the END?" I had asked, and the cheerful mood dissipated.

By the time several strong mermen were towing me ashore, I had learned several important pieces of information.

It was World War III. The Mutavi side (France, Great Britain, Russia, Australia, and North America) were supporting the mutants, and were trying to save them. Maximum Ride (the winged hero) had set up an underground railroad to get mutants into America and away from the END supporting countries(Germany, Austria, Turkey, Asia and Africa).

That meant that I had been living in a war zone for the last six months. God, how could I have been so stupid?

SO, dear readers, that is what brings me here. For the last six months, I've been darting from hideout to hideout across Africa and through Europe. This is the last hideout, if the hideout even exists. The END assassins became pretty good at sniffing out mutant lairs. I haven't seen another mutant since three months ago.

I rubbed the blood off of my stomach and began trotting to the apex of the hilly land. At the top was a pretty, white house. I lingered in the fresh air, even though I knew the END could swoop down on me at any moment. However, I would be stuck in that safe house for months, probably. This would be the last outside air I would breathe for a while.

I glanced around nervously; no one was in sight. My tail twitched—an anxious habit I couldn't get rid of. I took another deep breath, and chanted my mantra.

"My name is Caiden Rise. I am fifteen years old. I am a mutant."

Another breath.

"I don't deserve to die. I won't die. I can't die. Not like this."

I braced myself to sprint across the road when the front door of the house gently opened. A slender girl was framed in the doorway, her long black curls spilling down to her waist. Her enormous blue eyes locked onto mine. I gulped, feeling a shivery feeling down my spine.

"The pass code?" she asked with a light French accent.

I took a final deep breath, the heavy words finally ready to spill off of my tongue.

"Maximum."

She smiled.


	3. Maximum Warfare

_UHN._

Something hard slammed into my stomach, cart wheeling me through the air. There was a whistle as the gray-green missile zipped past where I just was.

I glanced down to see Fang's arms retracting from my stomach. I gave a nod of thanks and flapped my wings, hard, rising above the gray battle field.

We were above France, dropping Iggy's bombs onto the German side of the battle field; they were mostly non lethal, causing tremors that disrupted the soldiers, paralyzing gas that caused them to pass out, etc. But that's not all we were there to do.

"Angel, how close are we?" I screamed, squinting through the gray smoke of the fight. I caught a glimpse of her; a diminutive little angel floating above a war. Nudge was hovering around her protectively, shielding her from bullets and missiles.

Angel's eyes opened and met mine across the air.

_I've almost got the last one, _Angel thought to me. She was finding who was in charge of each squadron of soldiers and making them fall asleep, with her mind. Without the controlling officers, the German ranks would soon disrupt in chaos and the French would take the trenches.

Trench warfare. Bloody, gruesome, and the same as it was seventy years ago.

Only with more advanced technology, which meant the battle was bloodier.

"Got him!" Angel screamed, and Nudge grabbed her hand, yanking her higher and higher into the sky, out of bullet range. A dark streak blurred across the sky; Fang, with Gazzy and Iggy hot on his heels. I took a cursory glance across the rest of the dark, tear stained sky and took off after them.

* * *

We landed on top of a crumbling gray tower in the shadowy city of Orleans. I was pretty sure that no one had seen us land, but to be safe we stayed up there for two hours.

It was sad, seeing all the monuments surrounded by sandbags, and the people hunched over, as though they were trying to sink into themselves. They scurried around the cobblestone streets and tried to avoid eye contact with the tall imposing black figures who dragged people out of houses and made them disappear. Forever.

They were known as Shades, and they worked for the END. They worked in the shadows and caused people to disappear into the dark.

Something warm brushed against my knee, and I looked up. I was sitting on the roof, my back against the stone edging, and Fang had settled next to me. He had put his hand on my knee.

I gulped and felt a weird shivery feeling in my stomach. I steeled my nerves and looked over at Fang's dark, contoured face.

"That was close today. You almost got hit," Fang said. Was that…concern in his voice?

"Well, we knew what we were getting into. If I…got hit, it's not as if you guys would be surprised."

"Yeah, I don't think_ surprise_ would be the first thing we would feel," Fang said. I looked over, shocked at the anger in his tone.

"Fang—"

"Max," Fang replied in a low tone. He leaned forward and moved his hand from my knee to my shoulder. He brushed my hand back with his warm hand.

"You have to know that you _can't _die. That I need you."

"Everyone needs me, Fang," I said shakily. I should have been thinking about how we needed to scout the streets and find our safety house for tonight, but all I could think about how Fang was leaning toward me.

"Max, you know what I mean."

It was dark, but I could still see the outline of his hair, the light of his dark eyes and how he was getting closer. I felt a quiver down my spine.

"_Shade."_

The venomous word was spat out of Iggy's mouth in a low hiss. I shot away from Fang, a blush staining my cheeks.

"_Where?" _I asked. Iggy sniffed.

"I can smell the blood and chloroform. On the sidewalk."

I peered over the ledge and saw the dark figure stride inside the building across from us.

"_Everyone away from the edge. Be ready for U&A," _I whispered. I felt a poke in my side, and turned to see Gazzy, looking vulnerable and dirty with smoke.

"Max, isn't that…isn't that our new…"

I looked again at the house the Shade had crept inside of, and blanched. That was our newest safe house, the one we would be staying in for tonight.

Because of the top secrecy of our mission, we had to sleep somewhere different every night. Sometimes we slept in some trees that were particularly leafy. Sometimes, we stayed in some abandoned stables full of fleas.

But when we could, we stayed in the safe houses that we set up seven months ago. The ones that were the underground railroad for mutants.

However, they didn't always work. They were abandoned by scared owners. Mutants didn't always make it there. And worst of all, the Shades caught on to the ruse.

"Gazzy, don't look," I ordered softly. His eyes widened, and he buried his head in my side. I pressed my lips against his head.

"Shhh, it's okay. They can make it out."

I prayed—and I don't really do that—that the house had no other mutants in it.

Five minutes passed. Then ten. Then—

My stomach tightened as a high, piercing scream broke the tense air. The scream was followed by others, raw voices begging and begging.

A man was dragged out by the Shade. Two more Shades appeared out of nowhere and ran into the house to get others.

The man was young, his features screwed into an expression of complete terror. The man—or boy, actually—was human. He started babbling in French, pleading for his life.

The Shade backhanded the boy across the face, and began to drag him into a van that had pulled up silently.

I could see the boy take a deep breath, could see the tears dripping off of his face.

"MAXIMUM!" He bellowed. I flinched. The boy was shouting the password to the safe houses. If the password was shouted into the streets, it meant that the safe house was jeopardized. Word would pass from citizens and informants until it became clear to the rest of the mutant refugees that the safe house was no longer safe.

"MAXIMUM!" he screamed again, and I shifted, ready to pounce. I was itching to destroy the Shades, but the Flock was so tired. I wasn't sure they could win the fight.

The boy was shoved into the van. With a bang, the front door to the house smashed open again, and the other Shades came out, holding…

Erasers.

I blinked, focusing. No, not Erasers. They were little kids, as young as Gazzy, but they were obviously part wolf because they looked _just like Erasers_.

I felt a strange tugging feeling in my heart. The playing field had been leveled. The Erasers were just as persecuted as us, and they were kids.

A little girl screamed and tried to run. She was younger than Angel, and was mid-morph. She snapped at the Shade with half-formed teeth, but he snatched her up, her arm breaking with an audible snap.

"That's _it_," I snarled, and I jumped off the roof.

Or tried to. Angel collided into me, throwing her little exhausted body at mine. I slammed into the roof top, my head hitting a stone chimney.

"Angel, what the—"

"Max, _look_." Angel's blue eyes glowed like lamps as she pointed at the street below. I narrowed my eyes, focusing, and gasped.

Shades.

They were hidden everywhere. The gleam of their eyes shone menacingly from the roof tops, in the windows of houses, and in the darkness of the streets below. My heart beat slowed as I realized that we were completely surrounded.

_Angel, can you put them to sleep? _I thought toward her. She shook her head.

_Too many._

_Do they see us? _I asked.

A pause. Her lower lip trembled, and her tiny chin jerked in a nod.

"GO!" I screeched, and I leaped off the roof.

My heel scraped against the edge of the roof as I momentarily dropped in altitude. The Shades who had a handle on the kids dropped them and stared up at me. The kids fell to the ground, gasping, but were forced into the van by other Shades before they could get away.

I kicked my legs violently as a Shade actually jumped out a window to tackle me. I swerved, dipping lower, and flapped my wings hard to rise. The Shade screamed, his outstretched hands missing my feet my inches.

I was proud as Nudge appeared, glued to my heels. Her fluffy hair was in disarray, along with the rest of her clothes, but she had her pack with her. Good.

I beat my wings hard, harder, fast, and faster, as bolts from cross bows and bullets whipped past me.

"Iggy, eleven o'clock! Stick to Gazzy!" I screamed, hoping I could be heard over the wind. Nudge screamed as a line of bullets whipped past her. The few lights of the occupied French city faded as we flew high and higher.

My wing muscles groaned in agony as we rose above the cloud line.

Safe. For now.

Fang circled around us. Angel was panting hard, blood trickling out of her mouth. She had bitten through her lip in surprise in fear. I would hug her later.

Gazzy was holding Iggy's hand, directing him toward the rest of us. It's awkward to hold hands during flight, but Gazzy managed it, for which I was grateful.

"Everyone alright?" I asked. Nudge had burst into silent sobs, terrified of the gunfire that had almost hit her. Her tears froze to her face. She was shaking, but as I couldn't exactly comfort her midair, I brushed my wing against her back.

"We need to save those kids, Max. We have to!" Gazzy cried out.

"I know!" I shouted. "But are we up for an eight hour chase? I don't know if you guys can handle this. I don't know if _I _can handle this!"

My harsh words were met with silence. I took a shuddering breath.

"We've been here for a month, and I don't think we've made any difference. What kind of idea was that, leading a bunch of kids into a war!"

"We're not _kids_, Max," Iggy interrupted me. "Stop treating us like kids! You're supposed to save the world, and god dammit, we're saving it with you!"

Silence. The dark air was freezing and hazy, but I could see the faces of my flock perfectly clear.

"He's right. We're with you," Angel said, swooping closer to me. "I'm with you."

"Me too."

"Well, duh, I am."

"Ditto."

I turned to Fang.

"I'm always with you, Max."

I sighed.

"Let's go save the world."

And we flew off into the night.

* * *

**Hey. So not a lot of people have been reading this, which makes me sad, but if you do read this, please review! I love feed back. It doesn't take too much time to review, so take fifteen seconds out of your day to critique my brain child.**

**(Okay, that sounded weird)**

**(By brain child I meant the story)**

**(I'm just going to go now)**


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